Murray to the Mountains Rail Trail

Easter this year was spend down in Victoria riding the 'Murray to the Mountains Rail Trail'.

We had a very GREEN long weekend, catching the L88 bus into town, then the overnight XPT

sleeper to Wangaratta in VIC, where we hired 2 bikes and 2 tag-a-longs, then another bus to Bright.

This 'Rail Trail' is a sealed path that follows an old railway route through the Ovens Valley and links the townships of Wangaratta, Beechworth, Myrtleford, Porepunkah & Bright by cutting through hills, under roads, over embankments, across gullies and creeks.

We rode it over 4 days doing about 30km/day stopping at various wineries, be

rry & nuts farms, local towns, easter festivals etc. We each had a pannier for our clothes and we stayed at the local pub in Myrtleford and the caravan park at Everton - boy were those hot showers appreciated. 

Our bottoms suffered a little (bike bum!!) and Chloe ha

d a tumble on the way out of Myrtleford - pride was more dented than anything else, although a large plaster helped heal all!

Pete and I managed the 16km, 2hr climb to Beechworth - the mind was willing but the bodies left a lot to be desired....then the kids loved the 20min ride straight down to Everton - I think we only peddled about twice!  

On the last day we rode into Wangaratta about 1pm and had just settled ourselves at the local pizza joint when the heavens opened - it poured for the next few hours - we just sat there eating Pizza, having a few coldies and thanking our lucky stars we weren't still out riding in it!

A movie for the afternoon set us up for the overnight XPT back to Sydney. Don't let the sleeper part of the equation fool you though - there is no sleeping on those trains - it is like lying next to a drunken violin player - the whole train creaks, rattles and rolls all over the joint, then the conductor makes announcements at 3am as to which station we are pulling into - as if we cared!! 

Arriving very bleary eyed around 7:30am (I watched the dawn come up over Campbelltown!) we quickly dressed Toby in his School uniform (left at daddy's old work over the weekend) and dropped him off at circular quay for his school excursion 'Lessons Afloat' - what a trooper (although later that afternoon he finally succumbed and refused to go to soccer training - heading straight for bed!) A final bus ride saw us stagger on home for a well earned relax, but we were so hyped up we spent all afternoon and well into the night pouring over camper trailer and 4WD magazines - talk about junkies!!

What a fantastic 4 days, especially since we all managed to get along, which gives me hope that we won't want to strangle each other in the confined spaces of a trailer for 5months (or at least not all the time anyway!).

Stay tuned for camping show mania!